The Fall from Grace
by Nitesh
Summary: Javert stands on the bridge, watching the river that flows beneath him, and thinks about the convict 24601 and how perhaps he had been wrong about him all this time.


**The Fall from Grace**

"_Tomorrow we will discover what our God in heaven has in store..."_

The current ran below him, dark, rough, uncontrollable. It was amazing that he had never noticed it before. Of course, he had noticed that there was indeed water under the bridge, but he had never really watched it, thought about it, fought to understand anything beyond what he already knew. It was surprising.

Javert's wrists were lightly crossed and resting on the barrier, his hands dangling uselessly over the Seine. It was cold, and a pitch black night. The air that left his lungs turned to mist in the air and vanished after for a short time. The only object around that could cast shadow was the gaslights at either end of the bridge. They made Javert slightly uncomfortable. Even if a person was to walk right by him, it was uncertain if they would even notice him, for he, and most other things on the bridge, lurked in shadow.

It made him feel rather insignificant.

He stood there a long time, without note of time's passing. It was, simply, as if everything stood still for him, leaving just him staring vacantly at the river, who in turn did nothing but crash against the rocks. Finally he sighed, and, propping one elbow up on the barricade, draped his fingers over his eyes, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger absently.

_Now what...?_

There was no response. He hadn't expected one.

Twice now had Valjean met him unaware, perfectly able to kill him. And now twice had he released him. Why? How could this be? Valjean had every reason to hate him as much as Javert hated him. What would possess Valjean to let him go, when he was perfectly aware that he would only resume his search for him?

But there was no search anymore. Valjean had told him where he was living. He had asked him, Javert, to let him prepare his affairs. Give him a day or so, and then he was free to come and get him, take him away to the gallows.

For some reason, he did not doubt that the house would be empty if was to appear there in the morning. Valjean would come quietly, without fighting, and accept his fate.

_And what then?_

Javert was unsure. He was beginning to get a strange, empty feeling in his stomach, the same feeling that a guilty child would get. Although Javert was certain he was guilty of nothing, the hollow feeling remained. It was almost as if he was ill at ease, though he knew he should be at peace. His search was over. Everything was all _over_.

He looked up at the stars, the stars that had once given him peace once, and strength. In comparison they looked cold and dark to what they had been. He tried to remember what he would do now that Valjean would be finished. He found that he couldn't remember, and heard instead a taunting hiss,

"_There he goes again, that Javert. They say he's mad with catching that fugitive Valjean, 24601, they say he's **obsessed**."_

He thought about that, tasted the words in his mind, feeling the bite again and again.

Javert had always been a logical enough man. He knew that he had spent twenty years of his life dedicated solely to hunting down convict 24601. He knew that he had no family, and no friends, for the simple reason that they didn't want him, and in response he didn't want them. So, reasonably enough, he busied himself with other matters, namely the law, and his job as Inspector at the prison. The prisoners there were as beaten down and without rowdiness as could be, both by time and the nightsticks of the prison guards. This made Javert happy, in an empty sort of way. However, when one prisoner came, one who forced disruption among the jail and Javert's blissfully incessant life, it infuriated him to no end. For he had forgotten anything but the redundancy of his life, and being forced out of it was almost giving him a chance for change in his stony and cold face. And that was anything but what Javert wanted.

It was no surprise he held more hate for that prisoner, this 24601, then any of the others. And when he escaped his parole, it became almost his moral obligation to bring him back.

"_Hey, Javert, any luck with that 24601 lately?"_

Obsession might be the right word. When Valjean had left, it had thrown Javert's already fragile life in a turmoil. Valjean has disrupted his life, and in doing so, he became the only thing consistent. That made it _imperative_ that Javert return him _immediately_ to the gallows, so that he may keep being disruptive, _consistent_.

_And what now?_

A broken beginning of a laugh shattered the silence of the bridge, but was eaten by the stormy water almost instantly, and he rested his cheek on his hand.

_I miscalculated..._

_How?_

_The chase... the chase became the consistency._

He closed his eyes and sighed again. Working also with this borderline obsession came his other consistency- the Law. He learned at a young age that justice was blind, and everyone was prey to its wrath. He was the Law more then a man, of course. Cold, indifferent, uncaring. Blind.

It was beautiful to him, that everyone could be equal by the Law, and only by the Law could they be at all demoralized or set apart. Hand and hand with this went his conviction in God, and his Son, Jesus. They were what defined Javert, as a man, as anything- his convictions, his beliefs. That's what he understood better then anything else in the world. That's what he was.

He was the Law. And to his best, he was the word of the Lord. And one of them now... was wrong? Wasn't what he believed all these years?

_...Why is he suddenly a good man...? Has he found God? Has God forgiven him?_

If he had truly repented, then he was forgiven by God. And if he had repented, and he had been righteous for a long while- what did it mean that Javert fought so long to condemn him? Did that mean that he worked against God Himself...?

He found that his breathing had become harsh and ragged, as if he couldn't get enough air. Stilling it, he wrapped his arms around his thin body and stared down at the river, shivering.

Surely he hadn't...

_Please forgive me... _He prayed now, silently, feverishly. _I didn't know... forgive me..._

_You didn't **try** to listen._

_I didn't know he could change... I couldn't-_

_And if you fall as Lucifer fell, you fall in **flames**. And so it is written on the doorway to paradise- those would falter and those who fall must** pay the price. **_

He jerked away from the barrier. He found himself murmuring the Lord's prayer softly but quickly underneath his breath and he closed his eyes and spoke it even quicker, trying to find the solace in it that he often found as a child.

"-as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and-"

_Forgive us our trespasses, and we forgive those who trespass against us._

He froze within mid-thought in agonized disbelief, feeling his heart quicken and his face begin to sweat. He _had_ known that it was in God's word to forgive. He had known since _childhood_. He simply hadn't listened. He had failed the law and he had failed God.

There was nothing left for him now.

His mind was made up in a simple second, and it seemed that it was made without any other option or idea in it's place. Using the last of his strength- and even of his fear- he walked back over to the bridge, and resting his long fingers on the rail, he looked over. The water did not slow, nor did it's rough current soften.

His last thought was a simple prayer for his soul, a final plea to God.

And the black abyss swallowed him whole as he flung himself out over the icy water.

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